


Intrusive Thoughts Produce Intrusive Dreams

by WinterTongue



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Awkward Romance, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale's Bookshop (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley's Bentley (Good Omens), Crowley's Plants (Good Omens), Humor, Idiots in Love, Might Be Multiple Chapters, One Shot, The Bentley Ships It (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:07:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22603705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinterTongue/pseuds/WinterTongue
Summary: Aziraphale and Crowley are retired. Well, something like that. Whatever their current state of unemployment, they're together, and freedom is a wonderful thing... as are, as Aziraphale comes to understand, dreams.(Idea comes from Mojo Chojo's Ineffable Husbands animatic... look 'em up on YouTube.)
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	Intrusive Thoughts Produce Intrusive Dreams

A demon and an angel are lounging in the backroom of an antique bookshop. This may sound like the beginning of a bad joke, but I assure you, it’s not. Their names are Aziraphale and Crowley, and they’ve been friends since Adam and Eve first sinned. It’s taken an Apocalypse and several near-discorporation experiences for them to be able to have daily meetings such as this.

After months of ‘retirement’, Crowley has gotten antsy. Aziraphale assures him that they have at least a few thousand years before Above or Below comes nipping at their heels. He agrees, of course. He simply thinks erring on the side of caution may be best for a while. Even if that means he can’t miracle a hangover away.

He’s dozing off, comfortably tipsy on the sofa, when a noise captures his attention. He blinks1 in surprise when he sees Aziraphale fast asleep in his armchair. He’s never known the angel to sleep.

Six thousand years and this is a first, he thinks, glasses slipping down his nose.

It’s strange, seeing Aziraphale sleeping. There’s a tattered blanket sprawled over his lap. His head lolls to the side, mouth ajar, and the book in his lap is bent at one corner from where his finger was going to turn the page. His glasses2 have slid down his nose. He looks… human. Is that we he looks like?

Probably not. He has the sneaking suspicious that he sleeps with his eyes open, if the semi-startled look of that one innkeeper back in Mesopotamia is anything to go off. Aziraphale never mentioned that the demon sleeps eyes-open, though, so that might’ve been a fluke.

Crowley watches his angel’s pulse thrum. His fingers twitch, like they’re trying to grasp something. There’s another strange noise—a whimper, Crowley decides—and the demon is on his feet. He carefully removes the book and places a bookmark in it. He’d be in for it if he dogeared a page.

It must be a nightmare. The noises increase, as does the fidgeting, and Crowley is standing awkwardly in front of him. Should he use a demonic intervention to ease his dreams? He could wake him up, but the angel never sleeps. His worry increases when the angel jerks awake, breathing fast and shaky. He’s even sweating.

“Bad dream?” Crowley guesses, taking Aziraphale’s reading glasses off. He sets them on the table, somewhere between a clutter of books and novelty mugs.

“I, ah—no, I don’t suppose it was.”

He raises his eyebrows. “It sounded like one. I’ve had plenty, Angel, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“My, how time has flown!” The angel quickly gathers the dirty dishes and bumbles off, the blanket hastily thrown into the sofa.

The demon glances at his watch. He’s only been here for two hours.

Was the nightmare that bad?

He follows Aziraphale into the kitchen space, scowling now. “Come on, Angel, talk to me. Helps if you talk about—”

“Oh, really, there’s no need!”

A hiss threatens to slip off his forked tongue. He bites it, sternly forcing himself to be reassuring instead of insistent. Before he can say a word, however, Aziraphale has thrust his jacket at him. He’s red faced, thoroughly embarrassed, and Crowley really does hiss at that3.

In doing so, he picks up on a smell. For the second time that day, he blinks.

Aziraphale ushers him towards the door. Crowley stumbles along, completely pliable in his shock, and he doesn’t move from the steps even after Aziraphale has shut—and locked, as if that would stop Crowley from going back in—the door.

Crowley watches the blinds snap down in unison. There’s no noise inside, no footsteps or idle hum. He drives the Bentley back to Mayfair. For once, he’s obeying most traffic laws.

“Are you gonna take me home tonight? Ah, down beside that red firelight. Are you gonna let it all hang out? Fat bottomed girls, you make the rockin' world go 'round,” Queen sings. The Bentley’s engine purrs.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Crowley yells, slamming his hands on the wheel. He floors it. The shock has overflowed, breaking the dam of Crowley’s self-control.

How was he so stupid? Crowley knows he’s a shoddy demon, but this is a new low. Asking Aziraphale if it was a nightmare, thinking he was hurt or dying—the angel was obviously having a wet dream! And Crowley, for all his wiles and cunning, acted like he was the damn principality’s psychiatrist.

Freddie Mercury jams on. “Hey, I was just a skinny lad, never knew no good from bad. But I knew life before I left my nursery, huh. Left alone with big fat Fanny, she was such a naughty nanny, heap big woman, you made a bad boy out of me. Hey, hey!”

“Shut up!” he snarls at the car. The volume increases. Crowley hadn’t touched the dial.

“I've been singing with my band, across the wire, across the land. I see every blue-eyed floozy on the way, hey. But their beauty and their style, went kind of smooth after a while. Take me to them dirty ladies every time!”

The chorus blares. Crowley spits curses—and a bit of hellfire, which mercifully doesn’t land on the dash—and grapples with the volume. It refuses to turn down. People behind him are honking. Crowley flips them off with his free hand.

Seeing as the Bentley is determined to keep playing ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’ as loudly as mechanically possible, Crowley grits his teeth4 and infernally intervenes to get back to his flat.

In record time, he’s parked and booking it for his flat.

He slams the door behind him. He leans against it, furiously running his hands through his hair.

“Fuck!”

In Soho, an angel says the same thing. Instead of saying this in a harsh, out-of-breath tone, it’s spoken in a high, stressed pitch. It’s also accompanied by pacing and worried hand wringing.

Aziraphale is extraordinarily glad he hasn’t gotten his human form’s reproductive measures turned on. It’s bad enough that he had that—that—that dream! And in front of Crowley, no less! And if he’d been using an Active Effort, so to speak… he dares not finish that thought.

“I’ll make some cocoa,” he mutters to himself, “and I’ll write Crowley an apology. Oh, no, that’s too formal—is it too aloof of me to call, instead? Should I apologize in person? Oh, goodness, the poor demon had such a look on his face5, he’ll never wish to see me again.”

The dream was so very vivid. Honestly, it was lovely. Aziraphale, upon first waking up, had wanted to return to it6. Then he’d seen Crowley, looming over him. Concern and indecision were plain on his face. That’s when the horror settled in, worse than infernal fire in Aziraphale’s veins, and he’d burst into motion.

Now, the principality tries to focus on the disaster at hand instead of that dream.

Nightmare, Crowley had said. Hah! No, not a nightmare. Could the demon not sense that it was something very—un-celestial? Did it take a certain sort of demon to sense lust? Was it lust? Could he call it love?

He could, of course. He does love Crowley. He’s been in love with him for thousands of years, even if he only placed a name to the word in 1941. And, well, he also lusts for him. It was a terrible realization at first. Now it’s become an indulgence, he supposes. Especially since he’s been laid off. Maybe his thoughts got away from him a time or two and yes, maybe those thoughts manifested themselves in Aziraphale’s subconscious.

This could be ignored if Crowley hadn’t been right there7.

If he’d been a braver being, he might have pulled Crowley forward by that stupid ascot and kissed him to discorporation. If Crowley was a tad more in tune with his infernal senses and wasn’t inebriated, perhaps the demon might have taken a shot at a temptation. Aziraphale would put up a bluff, but he is an angel. Crowley could never tempt him with hellish influence. It’s Crowley being Crowley that’s the problem.

How does he approach this?

“I need some cocoa,” Aziraphale says more firmly, “and while I drink, I’ll practice what I’ll say to Crowley.”

The cocoa goes cold between Aziraphale’s practicing and his researching. It’s been a while since he’d last used the language of flowers. He does hope this will be a good enough apology—six thousand years, they’ve known each other, and he will not throw it all away due to a dream.

Back in Mayfair, Crowley has drunk himself into further stupor. He tended his plants8 and passed out on his throne, body sprawled in such a manner he had to be boneless or dead.

He wakes up when his doorbell rings. He grimaces, head swirling and mouth dry, and is about to cast the intruder into another continent. The only reason he doesn’t is because it’s Aziraphale’s voice that calls his name.

With little grace, Crowley runs to the door. He smooths his hair, wills away his hangover, and straightens his clothes.

He opens the door.

Aziraphale has a bouquet of flowers in his hand. The free one is poised to knock on the door; now, it drops to his side. He smiles in a forced manner. Crowley is very aware that he has no idea where this conversation is going to go.

“Ah, hello. May I come in, Crowley?”

Crowley merely steps aside. Aziraphale’s only been in his flat one other time, and that was right after Armageddon failed. Impending doom makes a tour much less fun. To buy some time, Crowley finds his voice.

“Let me show you around, angel.”

“Must we go through formalities first?” He smiles weakly. “I believe we have something to discuss. I’ve, ah, brought a gift.”

He holds out the bouquet. Crowley wonders if he realizes the sentiment behind the flowers9 or if he just thought they were pretty. He takes it and stares at them, stamping down the heat rising to his face10. They’re lush flowers, beautiful, like they were homegrown.

“Thanks,” he says lamely. “Uh, any reason for this?”

“Crowley.”

The admonishment jars Crowley. He nods and swallows thickly. “Fine. I, uh—want a drink? For while we talk?”

“I’d rather be sober but thank you. Do you have a sitting room?”

Crowley clears his throat. “Got a minimalistic lifestyle,” he says lamely.

“A no, then.” Aziraphale sighs. “Well, is there anywhere you’d prefer to talk?”

He grimaces. “Not near my plants. They’ll get ideas if they meet you11. C’mon, I got a place.”

They walk into the ‘living space’. Aziraphale looks almost amused by the throne and the grand flatscreen. He opts to stand, however, and Crowley sprawls across the throne. He rests his chin on his fist and waits, ever so patiently, for Aziraphale to begin babbling.

Sure enough, it begins.

“That was entirely inappropriate of me and I am terribly sorry. I do hope that the, er, incident won’t deter you from my company. Of course, if it does, I will understand. Oh, and I apologize for pushing you out. I was quite embarrassed, see, and—”

Crowley raises his hand. “Angel, listen. Everyone gets wet dreams.”

“Oh, don’t call it that!”

“Whatever you call it, it is normal. Heaven, I get them12. ‘s not a big deal.”

“Yes, well, be that as it may—did you like the flowers, dear?”

He gives an affirmative noise. He surveys Aziraphale’s jittery appearance with narrowed eyes. “Yeah. They’re, er, pretty. Real healthy. Did you grow them?”

“Anathema has a lovely garden. I skipped by, for a moment.” He clears his throat. “Crowley, you do know the flower language, yes?”

“Fuck.”

“Pardon?”

Crowley scrambles off the chair. His mind whirls. Aziraphale is—the flowers—this isn’t an—is this a—shit!

“Those,” he manages, waving erratically to where the bouquet is laying, “are a proposition?”

Aziraphale looks aghast. “I would never prostitute myself. Nor you, for that matter.”

“No, you bloody idiot, you’re—is this you trying to say something? With a capital ‘L’?”

The principality sighs heavily. “Well, I’d hoped this would be both an apology and a good bit of romance. May I finish?”

“Hold on.” Crowley shakes his head in disbelief. “Have you known? That… about how I feel?”

If he has, bless it all, Crowley might combust.

“I’m afraid I have, for perhaps a decade. I only identified the feelings myself in 1941.” He laughs awkwardly. “But, well. I’d been feeling them for quite some time before that. And I, well, I had an inkling that you may feel similarly. You do, don’t you?”

There’s anxiety in Aziraphale’s eyes. He’s twisting that pinkie ring with renewed fervor. Crowley splutters, unable to string together anything other than monosyllabic sounds and the occasional hissing. Eventually, he flops back onto the chair with a loud groan.

“Angel, you can sense—that.”

“I can, yes.” He stares pleadingly at Crowley. “Please answer the other question.”

Crowley smacks his hand to his face. “Blessed heaven, you idiot.”

Aziraphale scowls. “Really, now.”

“Yesss,” he hisses, glaring at the angel. “I do.”

“You—you do?”

“What, you think I’d talk out of my ass about this?”

“No! Heavens, no! But you weren’t responding, so forgive me for being unsure.” He sniffs primly, as if the bastard isn’t blushing from head to toe.

Crowley pinches the bridge of his nose. “I don’t want to go too fast,” he mumbles. “I know you said that because of the holy water, since you thought I was a suicidal wanker who’d ask my best friend for an out, but you can’t blame me for wanting to be sure you won’t flip around and change your mind.”

“My dearest. That was when I still aligned with Upstairs and you with Downstairs. I didn’t want to risk your safety.”

“So, you’re telling me I could have jumped your bones right after we got our former sides off our backs?”

“Aside from the crass language, yes. You could have. Though I would have preferred talking beforehand.”

The demon formerly of Hell stares at the clever, stupid principality.

Of course. Of course, the one being in all of existence that would ever get Crowley’s love is just as good at communication as he is.

“Idiot,” he says harshly. Aziraphale huffs, no doubt about to snip back, but Crowley plows on. “I accept your bloody flowers and half-assed offer of—of whatever it is you want to call this.” Crowley gestures to the space between them, which is getting progressively smaller. Aziraphale inches closer like he’s a spooked horse. “No take backs, angel. You’ve gone and done it. Stuck with me, now.”

“Might I kiss you, Crowley?”

He makes a series of graceless noises that, coupled with the wide-eyes and elongated teeth, make Crowley seem more like a serpent-human hybrid having a seizure than a demon over six thousand years old.

“Are you quite alright, dearest?”

“Egkh.”

“Shall I fetch some water?”

Aziraphale doesn’t wait. He bumbles off, calm as you please, while Crowley gapes after him.

You, he thinks furiously, are a demon. A demon! He asks for a kiss and half your bodily functions—that you don’t even use—start going off. Absolutely intolerable. I want a refund. Heaven’s sake, stop fucking blushing like a schoolgirl—

“Here you are.”

Crowley throws back half the glass, turning the water into vodka as he goes13. Unfortunately, instead of giving him immediate liquid courage, it causes him to cough and splutter. Aziraphale smacks his back to help.

“Well,” the angel says once Crowley is breathing somewhat normally, “this has gone splendidly.”

He glares at his angel. “You think so?”

“Oh, absolutely.”

And Aziraphale is smiling, eyes crinkled at the edges, not a smidge of a lie in his words.

Crowley runs a hand over his mouth. He takes a deep breath, orders his corporeal form to obey him, and grins at Aziraphale, thankfully rid of the serpentine teeth.

“Never did say yes, did I?”

“No, you were busy choking.”

“Bastard.”

Crowley, in all his years on Earth, has not once kissed someone. He’s never had to do any hands-on sexual temptations, either. He knows how the bits and bobs work. He’ll get the job done with a bit of infernal influence. Then, he’s on his way. Simple. No need to get down and dirty with humans, for work or otherwise. Too short a lifespan. Anything remotely intimate with another demon is a ‘no,’ so that one’s out.

Crowley has no experience with anything that has to do with intimacy, be it sexual or otherwise. He’s given himself a good wank, though he’s not sure if that counts as intimacy. Handholding on the bus ride from Tadfield had rattled him once their lives weren’t in danger. A suggestion to kiss rendered Crowley a blubbering, incoherent mess.

Eyes narrowed in concentration, Crowley darts forward and presses his lips against Aziraphale’s. There’s a “Mph!” and an awkward smack of foreheads. Someone’s nose is in the way. Crowley holds his angel’s face, determined to do this and do it right14, and is more than pleased when Aziraphale tilts his head a certain way.

Noses out of the way and foreheads no longer in danger, the kiss goes a lot smoother. Crowley is somehow able keep his body from shutting down. Aziraphale is touching his neck and hair, which feels much better than he’d ever imagined. He pulls back with a self-satisfied smirk.

“Good?” he asks cockily, thoroughly convinced that he’d given a satisfactory kiss.

Aziraphale is grinning broadly. “I do believe so.”

Then Crowley remembers why any of this happened in the first place and raises an eyebrow.

“What was that dream about?” Just like that, Aziraphale’s smile drops into a scowl. Crowley sniggers. “No worries, angel. Lunch?”

“It has been a while since we’ve been to that one place in Rome.”

“Visited it a couple hundred years back, they’ve made it into kid’s clothing store.”

“But the oysters!”

Crowley nods grimly. “Yup. Petronius is probably angry ‘bout that. I’d be, at least.”

“Hmph.” Aziraphale thinks for a moment, pouting. “I suppose we could go on a picnic. The weather is nice today.”

“Sure. We’ll have to stop at your place for food and such, I don’t have anything here.”

“Sounds lovely, my dearest.”

And it was, up until Crowley opened the Bentley’s passenger door.

“Hey, listen here! Now I got mortgages on homes, I got stiffness in my bones. Ain't no beauty queens in this locality, I tell you. Oh, but I still get my pleasure. Still got my greatest treasure. Heap big woman, you done made a big man of me—”

Crowley can only watch in horror as the Bentley continues:

“Now, get this! Oh, (I know) you gonna take me home tonight? (Please) Oh, down beside that red firelight. Are you gonna let it all hang out? Fat bottomed girls, you make the rockin' world go 'round, yeah! Fat bottomed girls, you make the rockin' world go 'round!”

“What is this?” Aziraphale yells over the song, which has well surpassed the 100-volume limit by now.

Crowley, instead of answering, has begun to smack his palm against the bonnet. It does nothing.

“Get on your bikes and ride! Ooh yeah, oh yeah, the fat bottomed girls. Fat bottomed girls! Yeah, yeah, yeah! Alright, ride 'em, c'mon. Fat bottomed girls, yes, yes!”

As the song ends, the Bentley, mercifully, goes silent. Crowley glares at his beloved car. Aziraphale clears his throat.

“Lovely tune?” he says, though it’s more question than statement.

Crowley glowers as he slinks into his seat. “Not even a bit.”

**Author's Note:**

> 1As a demon, snake wise, he rarely blinks. This unnerves many people, save for Aziraphale, who commonly scolds him for it. “You are in a human form, dear,” he admonishes, “and your eyes will dry out if you don’t remember to blink!” This usually gets an eye roll in response, and on occasion a suggestion for Aziraphale to mind his own. His body wouldn’t dare start failing on him, anyways.
> 
> 2He doesn’t need them, really, but Aziraphale finds them ‘nifty’. And why wouldn’t he? They match his bookshop-that-never-sells-a-single-sodding-book get up, don’t they?
> 
> 3Heaven wasn’t perfect when he Fell. Going back Up There only showed that Time doesn’t always heal wounds, let alone all of them. Aziraphale was treated like shit. No wonder he’s not a fan of sleep—memories from his time as Heaven’s scapegoat would make anyone, human or otherwise, have nightmares.
> 
> 4Somewhere between getting in the Bentley and coming to his senses, Crowley’s fangs have protruded in an extremely inhuman way. He can’t shut his mouth fully, bless them, and he can taste the venom on his tongue.
> 
> 5If Aziraphale was a bit more observant, and if Crowley didn’t wear those tinted glasses when they dined together, he would know what that Look was, and that Crowley was far from a ‘poor demon’ in that moment. Dumbstruck, yes, but not poor.
> 
> 6Aziraphale has never slept. This said, he imagines it to be a bit like watching the telly. If you stop, you can resume where you left off. That is a thing, yes?
> 
> 7Realistically, it doesn’t matter if Crowley was there or not.
> 
> 8By this I mean that Crowley screeched at them in a language so old it scorched his tongue and accidentally tipped over his favorite fern, spitefully named Patricia after that one vine. He made Vine a thing, did you know? Boredom does that to you.
> 
> 9Orchids, red roses, magenta zinnia, primrose, and gardenias. Most of them have to do with love, requited love, or passion. It’s not very subtle, is it?
> 
> 10Demons don’t blush. They don’t love angels, either, but Crowley refuses to let himself use four-letter words to describe himself or what may or may not exist between him and Aziraphale.
> 
> 11Aziraphale looks moderately alarmed at this, or perhaps confused. Crowley has never mentioned his plants to him. Does he have sentient plants? Is Aziraphale a bad influence on nature? He has no idea.
> 
> 12He doesn’t mention that he jerks off like his life depends on it afterward, or that the dreams center mainly around pudgy blonde angels who once guarded the eastern gate of Eden. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.
> 
> 13Crowley learned that one from Jesus. Neat trick, that. Alas, this is not a wine-requiring situation.
> 
> 14He’s concluded that moving forward so quick was a bad idea, considering he’s inexperienced and has awful coordination as it is. Aziraphale seems into it, though, so that’s a win.


End file.
